I was brought on board just as shooting had started, as pre-recorded tracks of some songs of the period were urgently needed for the performers in the Soho nightclub scenes: Never Do A Tango With An Eskimo, Betcha I Getcha and Softly, Softly.

We assembled a six-piece band like what might be heard in a 1950s club at Chestnut Recording Studios, in a small basement in West Kensington, London: sax, trumpet, guitar, bass, drums and me on piano.

Hannah Tointon (Kiki Delaine) came and sang too.

She seemed a bit apprehensive but was really great; she had a lovely feeling for the character and sang in tune, a relief to all concerned. I think the fragility and vulnerability in her voice really added to the story.

I also wrote a couple of original pieces that the band could play in the background to scenes; time and resources were so short, it's usually quicker to write something original than to research and get clearance, approval and arrangements for existing tunes.

The musical style and period is something I am pretty familiar with and it's a favourite of mine; I had just finished a late 50s jazz-type score for We'll Take Manhattan, (which incidentally my pal John McKay wrote about on this blog).

A tricky part was making series two sound like the established, spare landscape of The Hour, but moving it on, making it particular to the new situations and characters and adding my own composer's voice.

Every composer has personal preferences, I suppose - harmonies, intervals, instrumentation, textures.

There were many lively discussions with the directors, editors, producers and executive producers about getting the tone just right, the balance between irony and sincerity, or whether certain scenes needed music at all - and opinions differed greatly.

At one point, I had to bail out of a particularly fraught sound mixing session and just let the team thrash it out.

The hardest part of the job was the time pressure, and as the schedule continued this got tighter. The first episode is invariably the hardest as the tone needs to be established to everyone's satisfaction.

I think this series is more directly emotional than the first.

A big theme is an inability to confront emotional truths, and the score reflects this: more lyrical perhaps, more expressive and thematic, though in a restrained way.

Over the course of the series, I used a range of instruments including piano, various saxophones, acoustic bass, vibraphone, celesta, percussion and drums - and also an amazing cellist (Nicholas Holland).

I've waited all my life for someone to ask me for a big classic news theme and the 'show within the show' finally gave me an opportunity.

For me, it needed to be very 1950s, confident and authoritative.

I based the theme on the well-known phrase "Cometh the hour, cometh the man," and included chiming bells and 'ticking' percussion - as I tried to do throughout the score - to root it to the idea of The Hour.

I wasn't responsible for the title music - I was spared the honour, and the agony, of trying to replace Daniel Giorgetti's great theme - but new situations demanded new material and writing for character is something I particularly enjoy.

Randall Brown, played by Peter Capaldi, is the new head of news and I suppose his music reflects his eccentricity and intellect, also his hidden emotional depths.

It seemed to work well alongside Peter's enigmatic performance. It's on a marimba which is like a big xylophone, with alto sax and acoustic bass.

I began my career as a percussionist in a rock band.

Bongos and Latin percussion, which had featured a little in the music for the first series, seemed ideal for Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw) with his Beatnik experiences and the fresh energy he brings to news reporting - we even gave him a little space-age Sputnik sound, like some sort of radio transmission, a sine wave through an echo effect.

The music for the nightclub hostess Kiki DeLaine and her boss Raphael Cilenti (Vincent Riotta) begins like a siren song and gets more obsessive and psychological as the story progresses.

I asked Helen Hamilton from the band Death Rattle to add a vocal to it - her voice has a similar haunting, girlish quality to Kiki's.

Although Bel is a central character, she doesn't often have music of her own; it's usually about the unfamiliar and sleazy surroundings in which she finds herself.

There is a chiming piano and alto saxophone theme that accompanies her awkward interactions with Freddie - bittersweet and yearning.

Kevin Sargent is the composer on The Hour.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Filming the contemporary set for the BBC One series was straightforward. However, taking that same location back in time by nearly 70 years was more of a challenge for writer and director Joe Ahearne.

Joe worked closely with visual effects supervisor Chris Mortimer and computer graphics supervisor Jonathan Privett, from the London-based post-production house Rushes.

They applied effects after the drama had been filmed to create the illusion of this passage of time, along with several other highly detailed finishing touches.

Here Jonathan explains how the magic of Crickley Hall was enhanced after the actors had all gone home...

Watch the trailer for The Secret Of Crickley Hall.

Jonathan Privett is the computer graphics supervisor on The Secret Of Crickley Hall. Hannah King, who filmed this interview, is a researcher in BBC TV and iPlayer.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Never before has the delivery of a letter caused such a stir.

The letter he brought was swiftly passed round everyone and drew many admiring glances.

You would think we had never received a letter in a handwritten envelope before, and for most of us in a work capacity these days that is true.

But it wasn't a celebration of days gone by that caused this excitement, but that Sir David Attenborough was the writer.

Sir David Attenborough on the phone, not email, in 1972

Sir David doesn't use email so working with him to develop BBC Four's collection David Attenborough - The Early Years involved the unique experience of receiving his letter at my office desk.

As the editor of BBC Four's Collections it's my role to find hidden gems in the BBC archive.

Programmes contained in these collections are permanently available to watch in full in BBC iPlayer as part of the BBC Four Collections. They never expire.

We've already launched four collections: Army, Talk, All American and London.

With Attenborough's Early Years, you'll see it's not just full length archive programmes, but also letters, internal memos and photographs which make up this unique collection.

So how did I go about selecting what to finally include?

BBC archive programmes are searchable in an online database. You order DVD copies of everything that sounds promising and start viewing.

With a wealth of material to choose from, we arrived at a list of 30 programmes.

They range from 1955 to 1969 and beautifully illustrate Sir David's early career including his first explorations abroad and first time presenting live in a studio.

The earliest programme in the collection is Zoo Quest To West Africa.

It was during the making of this series that David stepped in front of the camera, thus starting a hugely prolific and successful broadcasting career.

It was quite a bumpy start.

As I read in his book Life On Air, David came across a note from a BBC executive at the time who said of him: "David Attenborough is intelligent and promising and may well be producer material, but he is not to be used again as an interviewer. His teeth are too big."

The collection also captures the evolution of natural history programming and filming practices.

These programmes are amongst the first to be predominantly set on location, which was a significant turning point in the filming of animals.

As Sir David explains in a personal introduction that accompanies the programmes, animal programmes used to be entirely filmed in a studio and "consisted of an expert from London Zoo who brought animals from Regent's Park and exhibited them live in the studio, usually on a table covered by a doormat.

"He talked about them while they struggled to escape from the glare of the studio lights, occasionally wet down his front, bit him - or even escaped."

Attitudes to wildlife were so very different in the 50s that the premise of some of the early programmes can seem a little unsettling now.

Once captured, the animals would have to accompany David on his travels, so feeding and caring duties became part of the editorial of the programme.

Creating the collection made me nostalgic for a time I've never experienced.

In the 1950s much of the wildlife of the planet was un-filmed, even unknown. Trips were largely exploratory and communication back to London was via letters and telegrams.

This led to some treacherous journeys, as David recalls in this Zoo Quest For A Dragon clip.

Having received a beautifully written letter from Sir David myself, I decided that the best way to capture these behind-the-scenes trials and tribulations is through his own communications from that time.

And so I went to the BBC Written Archive in Reading, a fascinating place with four and a half miles of shelving containing millions of documents created as part of the BBC's daily operations.

I spent a few days immersed in old production files selecting documents for inclusion in the collection.

I mentioned to the archivists that it was quite ironic sitting here reading letters from Sir David whilst I myself had also received a letter from him.

I made a joke about framing my letter and was swiftly told that any letters David wrote to me are property of the BBC too, and should be handed over to the archive.

So as I wait for my next Attenborough letter to arrive I wonder whether I could still frame it and give the archive a photocopy. Probably not.

Sandra Gorel is the editorial executive for BBC Four Collections.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Operation Iceberg is a two part series on - you've guessed it - icebergs.

It's an interesting mixture of science and adventure with Chris Packham and Helen Czerski as the two lead presenters, ably assisted by Andy Torbet and Chris van Tulleken.

For each programme we had a gaggle of ice scientists who were willing to invest their time and expertise. We also had two film crews and a small production team - including me, the series producer.

Programme one is all about the birth of icebergs and based at a glacier in Greenland.

You'll see we had a little sailing boat right in front of the massive Store Glacier when huge tower block chunks of ice began falling off into the sea.

You can also watch a scientist leaping out of a hovering helicopter to plant a GPS at the very top of a 100m ice pinnacle.

The second episode is about an iceberg's life and death out at sea and was filmed on a huge tabular iceberg off the coast of Canada.

On the iceberg itself we had more polar bears than you could shake a stick at.

And at one point we were all on the iceberg when a large crack started to form across its surface and chunks of ice began breaking away just metres from where we were standing.

There was a real risk that this newly created chunk of ice would flip over taking the ship with it.

Quite frankly, there were many times during the expedition when I wished that someone else was making the series.

Not surprisingly we also had a sizeable safety team who were kept very busy. One of the most interesting things I discovered was how intelligent, rational people can have such differing attitudes to safety.

Take the polar bears. I had never seen one in the wild before and it was one of the most thrilling moments of my life to see one swimming by our ship.

And then we saw another. And another. And another.

It was soon very clear that the presence of all these polar bears would severely limit what we could do. They are the largest land predator on earth and have been known to attack and kill people.

Whenever we ventured onto the ice the bears would come to take a peep at us.

Chris Packham and Doug Allan, who have had considerable experience of them, were largely unperturbed.

They felt they could interpret the bears' behaviour and would have let them come quite close before retreating. Other people on the team were very frightened of them. And for good reason.

So one of my main jobs was persuading Chris and Doug that although in the past they'd been right next to bears, because we were now such a large team we had to be more cautious.

Simultaneously I was trying to persuade other people to actually leave the ship and go out on the ice at all.

So my job was really to try to reach a sensible middle line whereby we could still film what we needed and all come back in one piece.

After all these incidents and drama, the grand total of injuries consisted merely of a large number of mosquito bites and a small cut to the forehead.

Not bad given the things that could have happened. And now the expedition is all over I'm extremely glad I did do it. One of the most exciting adventures of my life.

Andrew Thompson is the series producer on Operation Iceberg.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

So back in July our TV development team thought that if we could get access, a women's prison could be a fascinating place for Stacey Dooley's next documentary for BBC Three, Girls Behind Bars.

We decided to focus our cameras in one unique institution: Lakeview Shock Incarceration Facility in New York State.

It's the only prison boot camp for women in America. It offers women with less than three years to serve for non-violent crimes the chance to get out in just six months.

It's called doing Shock. It's tough and above all, it felt very American.

Other than anything that could breach security nothing was off limits to our cameras.

Our crew of four (including Stacey and me the director) were with the inmates from the moment they were woken up before sunrise to the time they went to bed at 9.30pm.

We were able to film all of their gruelling daily routine from the two hours of exercise before dawn to the timed three-minute showers and regimented discipline in the canteen where they are given eight minutes to eat. Without talking and no 'eye-balling' the male inmates.

Initially while we were filming aspects of the regime did feel harsh. Many of the women who had suffered years of abuse were being shouted at by male drill instructors and pushed until they sobbed.

The 56 women at Lakeview are encouraged to share their life stories with their platoon.

We became an extension of the group therapy sessions which could be intense.

The inmates quickly became used to talking about their lives in public and openly shared their experiences with us on camera and off.

It was hard to watch and film some times. Seeing a woman revealing publicly something that has been secret and incredibly painful for so long in front of a group can be tough.

Stacey Dooley with inmates at Lakeview

All of us had tears in our eyes when inmate Shameek Brown talked about her experience of sexual abuse and so did half the room of inmates.

One correctional officer even admitted he sometimes has to walk out of the room during therapy sessions because he cannot allow the inmates to see him crying.

The subject matter revealed in the session was so sensitive and deeply personal we had to be absolutely sure that Brown was comfortable that we had filmed it - and was fully aware that she was sharing her story not just with the inmates and staff, but the TV audience.

Stacey spoke to her on her own in the dormitory afterwards and for the first time since we'd been filming her she seemed relaxed, relieved even.

She told Stacey she was glad it was out in the open and she was genuinely touched by the support she'd felt around her.

And that seemed to be the point of these sessions in Lakeview. They give these inmates a chance to address issues while they are locked away from the issues that got them in prison in the first place.

And for some inmates it seemed that this was why they are terrified of leaving the facility at the end of their sentence.

As we spent more time in Lakeview we realised that the officers who initially appeared to be bullies in fact cared about these women.

Shock Incarceration is something they believe in and they have stats to back up its effectiveness. They didn't want the women to quit no matter what.

Many of the women said they were tempted to quit Shock and spend their full sentence in a regular prison.

They craved the relative freedom, the chance to get out of bed and shower when they want, the chance to fight people who annoyed them.

We needed to visit a regular prison and ended up filming in Bayview, slap bang in the middle of Manhattan.

The contrast with Lakeview was startling.

Here we were with more serious offenders: murderers, women who had spent most of their lives behind bars, women who had killed their own children and repeat offenders who couldn't break the cycle of offending.

It was a claustrophobic environment made worse by the oppressive New York summer heat.

We had no idea who would be willing to talk. But it is easy to underestimate the break from the norm a BBC film crew provided the inmates with.

Many women agreed to be filmed almost out of curiosity.

Inmate Tyffane Offley, who tells Stacey she will never understand prison unless she commits a crime and does some time, was drawn to us on our first day on the recreation area on the roof.

She seemed to take pleasure in teasing, almost flirting with Stacey and making her uneasy before telling her that she had done time for beating up a prison officer.

The sergeant of security explained that for many inmates control is the one thing they crave, whether its control over when they eat, when they sleep, what they do and Offley was letting Stacey know that she was the one who was in control here.

Xavier Alford is the director of Stacey Dooley In The USA: Girls Behind Bars.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

And so when BBC Four commissioned our programme Tails You Win: The Science Of Chance there was a huge range of possible themes to explore, from gambling to natural disasters, extreme sports to collapsing economies, coincidences to lotteries.

We ended up touching on all of these since they all, at least to some extent, can be handled using numbers.

Of course people's feelings about chance and risk are vital, as my guts told me when I was waiting to do a skydive.

David Spiegelhalter in Tails You Win: The Science of Chance

But I am a statistician in the Faculty of Mathematics in Cambridge and so I think numbers are cool and when someone says something is 'risky', I immediately ask 'how risky?'

The programme shows how we try and answer that question, although the producers would not let me use all the equations. Meanies.

But they did let me talk about the fundamental ideas of chance itself. Does it exist as part of the external world? Or is it just a way of saying we don't know - our personal ignorance?

These are wonderfully tricky questions that a seven-year-old can ask and the biggest brains can't agree on.

My personal tendency is towards the 'ignorance' interpretation and I certainly believe that any probabilities we put on future events are a product of our judgment and don't really exist 'out there'.

But in the end all these fancy ideas don't make much difference, we still need to decide whether to spend our pension lump-sum on a huge motorbike or save it for our old age, go for a jog or slump on the sofa, buy a premium bond or a lottery ticket.

As the programme shows I love trying to compare the risks of different choices and so, for example, the theory of gambling fascinates me.

But in practice I don't get a huge thrill from actually risking my money and I know I would lose in the long run, and so my online betting account is kept for academic demonstrations only (honest).

The programme is not intended to make people more cautious or more risk-taking, but maybe to ask 'what are the chances?' and try to get an answer.

David Spiegelhalter is the Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University and presenter of Tails You Win: The Science of Chance.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Fran said I should be thrilled about a date with the school's do-able Dad. I mean, the last date I went on was... well it was with... it can't be... God, it was with my ex-husband!

Wait, did I even go on a proper date with Jason? Does him not charging me for a coffee class as a date?

It seemed to go from Jason giving me a free coffee to "Do you take this man to be your..." to ex-husband to "No Gemma, I can't have the kids this weekend because my bonkers Swedish girlfriend is waxing my toes"!

Forget Jason, Fran says I must prepare emotionally and physically for my date with Tom. She is a good friend but I don't know what she's talking about... and I can't get my brain off Billy - which I need to because he's my son's friend and half my age with eyes that make me.... stop it Gemma!

Billy (Robert Sheehan) - lovely eyes, and Gemma

Fran says if you're interested in more than one man then the way to decide is to have them strip to the waist and wrestle.

I'm not sure Tom and Billy would agree to that, although I'm sure I could sell tickets and make a lot of money out of that as an event.... that's not the point. The point is...

Wait! I know! A MAN LIST, good, yes a list, I'm more of a list woman than a wrestling woman.

I'm not against men wrestling - or women wrestling for that matter but.... enough! Think lists.

Reasons to date Tom
- He has luxurious hair, good yes, strong hair = strong man. Tom has the hair of a matinee idol, and he's admired - by other women - from afar - and up close.
- He's kind to animals and small children... At least I think he is, his daughter's hamster is six which is a record I think! He says he feeds it warm milk and honey when it 'sniffles'. Do hamsters sniffle?

Reasons not to date Tom
- He says 'sniffles'.

Reasons to date Billy
- His voice. Is that a reason to date a man - his voice? Yes, because... I mean... it's certainly a reason not to date a man eg Orville - vocally off-putting -although technically Orville's not a man, he's a bird, but he's voiced by a man and....
- Eyes! Billy has nice eyes, two of them. Lovely eyes in fact - for a fact in fact.

Reasons not to date Billy
- He's young, not really young but youngER - than me.
- He's also Alfie's friend. Which means the list leads me back to Tom.

This list thing isn't working.

Gemma Jones is the lead character and Fay Rusling and Oriane Messina are the writers of Me And Mrs Jones.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

But for Hunted, the new series I created for the BBC, I've moved away from science fiction to the spy genre, which is my favourite in all of film and television.

There are some obvious reasons for this.

Spy stories provide plenty of opportunities for action and suspense - things motion pictures can deliver with unique effectiveness.

But I think the real appeal of the spy genre is much deeper.

By definition spies are duplicitous. They appear to be one type of person when they are actually someone else altogether.

They pursue one agenda while pretending to serve another. A spy simply cannot be trusted.

To varying degrees the same can be said of all of us, spies or not.

We all present a face to the world that is not exactly the person we are inside. Because part of us always remains hidden, none of us is truly knowable - not our parents, siblings, spouse or friends.

It's not surprising we all yearn to be surrounded by people we can trust. And fear betrayal.

Melissa George as Sam Hunter during filming

That for me is what spy stories do so well. Spies live in a world of deceit and distrust. Their stories externalise our deepest fears.

By design Hunted plays on these fears in the most intimate way I could imagine.

Sam Hunter suspects that she has been betrayed by the man she loves. She must expose herself to mortal danger, knowing she can't trust him or anyone else.

Of course Sam is more than an embodiment of our collective fears. Brilliantly realised by Melissa George, she is a unique, complex, contradictory character with a dark and troubled past.

I am neither a spy nor a woman and yet I find it very easy to identify with Sam. I suspect many audiences will too.

Complicating Sam's situation is the brave new world in which she we now live.

Over the past few decades espionage has become increasingly privatised. Sam doesn't work for MI5 or MI6 - she works for Byzantium, a private security firm dedicated not to defence of the realm but to serving the interests of its clients.

These clients' identities are not revealed to operatives like Sam which makes identifying who might want her dead - and why - even more difficult.

Researching this world proved less difficult than you might imagine.

Business is booming - there are now thousands of private security firms operating all over the globe.

And while they keep secret their client lists they were very happy to talk (with names withheld) about the work they do.

I collaborated with a team of talented writers for six months on the stories for Hunted.

We devised a complicated web of deception with lots of action, suspense, and plot twists and turns.

But at the heart of it all we tried to never lose sight of the character of Sam, who anchors this dangerous world in a deeper emotional truth.

Frank Spotnitz is the executive producer and lead writer of Hunted.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

'Epic' was the name of the game.

As the production manager, my challenge was to facilitate the team's ambition - co-ordinating aerial shoots over some of Wales' most stunning landscapes, arranging over 140 locations and facilitating the creation of some exhilarating computer-generated reconstructions of Wales' most fascinating sites.

Being Welsh myself I felt a tremendous sense of pride being entrusted with such a responsibility.

Wales has deep stores of rich and emotional stories, stories of courageous heroes and ancient enemies, of entrepreneurs and fascinating facts.

Who knew that north east Wales had riches to rival the pharaohs at a time when the pyramids were being built? I certainly didn't.

As a history graduate, learning about my heritage was one of the perks of the job.

History is full of facts and figures, dates and statistics. Here's a few more we created along the way:

• 5,900 = the number of miles covered filming around Wales
• 140 = the number of locations featured
• 31 = the number of contributors in the series
• 50 = the number of academics consulted
• 23 = the number of CGI sequences
• 30,000 = the number of years we go back to the beginning of The Story Of Wales

The highlight of the project for me was the arranging the aerial shoot across the country.

Filming on one of very few glorious sunny days with Huw and the team down at Rhossili, Gower was quite a thrill.

Even though I spent most of the day hiding behind a bush with a walkie-talkie co-ordinating the helicopter hovering above with our aerial cameraman inside!

Before a bad weather front came in we had a tight window of two days to capture majestic shots of the whole of Wales and complete the grand opening sequence with our presenter Huw Edwards on top of the Paviland Cave where it all started.

Twice the high winds threw the helicopter off course and they overshot Huw. On the third try we got it.

But that wasn't the only time we were up against it. Filming with the BBC's top news presenter during a summer of high profile world news events caused some exciting challenges.

The story of the News Of The World closing down broke at 3pm whilst we were filming the inspiring story of the birth of industrial Wales in Parys Mountain at the very tip of Anglesey.

By 3.30pm Huw was on his way to Chester and by the time the 10 O'Clock News started the crew were sat in the Bangor hotel watching Huw deliver the programme!

Mr Edwards has an incredible work ethic.

The production involved meeting some inspiring individuals.

Llew, the Soar Chapel caretaker, evoked such a reaction from the crew singing a local hymn during an off-camera discussion that he made it into the main series - and brought me to tears in the cutting room.

The Story Of Wales is just that, the story of Wales made by the people of Wales.

We could not have completed this marathon task without the tremendous support and warm welcome we received at each and every location as well as the expert input of the national institutions, the crew and their extreme dedication and of course the eloquent and engaging delivery by Huw of a truly remarkable story.

I hope you enjoy the fruits of our labour...

Llinos Griffin-Williams is the production manager of The Story Of Wales.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

As the series producer it's my job to pull all six programmes together and deliver them on time and in budget.

This is only possible if you have a great team like I have with Nigella's camera crew and director, who have worked with her for many years.

One of the early decisions to be made is always where to film.

In a perfect world we would film Nigella Lawson in her own kitchen where she feels most at home cooking.

But this would be impossible to do safely considering all the camera and lighting kit that is involved. And that's before adding all the crew into the mix.

I'm not sure Nigella's family would be too keen to have 14 of us hanging around for 12 hours a day for a six week stretch.

The next best option was to recreate Nigella's kitchen in a studio.

Nigella would still feel confident cooking in a familiar kitchen layout and the camera and sound crew would have the control, space and flexibility they needed.

Once we'd found a suitable studio we had eight days to build a fully functioning kitchen and patio garden from scratch.

Day one was spent putting fake walls or 'flats' up to create our room within a room.

Our kitchen only has three walls - the cameras and monitors all sit where a normal fourth wall would.

Just as in Nigella's own home we all wanted our set kitchen to have a large bookcase.

We needed this to be as light as possible so that we could physically move it safely when we needed to reposition the camera or lights.

Our design assistant Vicky came up with a fantastic idea and if you look closely at the pic above you'll see on the floor spines of books made of cardboard.

See below how they were mixed in with the other real books, most of which are Nigella's own. She's quite a reader.

Our small patio garden was based on something similar that Nigella has in her London home.

Luckily the studio had a large brick wall (see below) so that made for a great natural backdrop.

We then hired lots of large bushes and plants. With no natural light they had to be kept alive with a special lamp which we put on each night after we had wrapped shooting.

The plants needed even more watering than usual too because of the hot studio lighting.

We laid a real concrete patio and even brought in live moss to fill the cracks.

After bringing in many of Nigella's own pots, pans and props the last stage was a lick of paint on the floor and we were ready to go.

One of the common questions is what happens afterwards?

Well, the set goes into a special BBC storage area for the next time. The books and props all went back to Nigella's home.

The plants are returned to thrive in the natural light and hopefully get a little more TLC than they got from our very un-green fingered crew.

Jennifer Fazey is the series producer of Nigellissima.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Adapted by Bill Gallagher (Lark Rise To Candleford) and set in England's first department store in the 1870s, The Paradise is an intoxicating love story starring Sarah Lancashire, Joanna Vanderham, Elaine Cassidy, Matthew McNulty, David Hayman, Patrick Malahide and Emun Elliott.

As filming moved into its final stages I visited the set at Lambton Castle in County Durham and managed to steal a few moments with some of the team involved in creating the enchanting backdrop to the drama.

Production designer Melanie Allen and assistant art director Rebecca Mason talked to me about how they created the look of the series.

Melanie began our tour by explaining that there are three main types of props: specially made items, antiques bought mainly in auctions or hired and reproductions found in ordinary shops and wholesalers.

Apparently you can usually spot the antiques as they are unique - all varying in shape and colour.

In contrast, where you have several identical pieces the repetition hints that they're probably reproduction items.

"Replicas give us the opportunity to repeat products and that's what you need in a department store," she explains.

"It's always a mixture," Melanie says, "so here we've got candlesticks that we bought from a supermarket mixed in with antiques on the shelf below."

These glass dispensers came from a department store in America.

"Victoriana is quite large in America," Melanie explains, "so they make reproductions and sell them in the shops.

"The equivalent in department stores here are very plain and simple, so we had to get them imported."

"You're trying to create things that add to the visual of the set without drawing attention to it.

"Lots of things are there to add the essential layers of detail, shape and colour in the background of the shop."

These wrapped empty boxes are examples of the 'deep background' props Rebecca is talking about - the secret to creating the impression of a fully stocked department store on a budget.

The boxes used on The Paradise set were all made in a box factory in Newcastle. As Melanie says, "It's all about the packaging."

Some of the labels were designed by the art department in period style. Originals from the period were also bought from historic label companies and replicated.

Company names used on the packaging are both real trading names from the period and ones invented by the production team.

Either way all the names need to be cleared for use according to copyright laws.

Copyright clearance can be got round by using clever wording that describes contents rather than a brand such as Finest Parisian Collars or even just Collars Ltd.

"The more expensive fabrics are on the rolls and they are literally wrapped once around foam," Melanie explains.

"Sometimes you have to say - it's going to cost too much, let's not stock that product."

All the materials that appear must of course have been available at the time.

"We're lucky though," Melanie says, "all this stuff was around because the industrial revolution had already happened. That's one of the reasons why department stores evolved.

"You had the middle classes who suddenly had cash and could start spending and things were being reproduced so it was no longer a case of an individual craftsman making goods."

Everything in the department store had to look shiny and new but in Lovetts, the outdated rival store across the street, props had to feel like old stock with wear and tear, and had to be aged.

Melanie describes ageing as a real skill.

"Everyone has their own techniques. You take a new item, you spray it with dirty water, coffee or tea and in some cases, such as old boxes of stock, use sandpaper and a hammer to further wear them down."

Many items were sourced from modern day craftsmen with a brief on how they might have looked in the Victorian era.

"We might have used specialist television people if we'd been in London," says Melanie, "but because we're in County Durham we used a regular baker and a regular florist.

"People really enjoy doing it because it's different to their normal day job!"

They tried varnishing the bread to make it keep but it wasn't a great success.

Finally, I asked Melanie what her and her team were most proud of.

"Everything's beautiful isn't it?" she says.

"It's the combination of everything together... When you add the repetition of items it stops it feeling like a museum or antiques centre.

"You totally know you're in a shop when you come in and that in itself was the greatest challenge that we've achieved."

More on The Paradise
Watch the trailer.
Read Behind The Scenes In Paradise on the BBC College Of Production blog.

Hannah King is a researcher in BBC TV and iPlayer.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

With three yeses you're basically in paradise, two will bring you happiness and one means you at least can survive.

I personally have a fourth one which is 'are my trousers comfortable?', but overall that three-question approach seems like a good, simple model for personal development.

I've got a similar three-question model when I'm having business ideas pitched to me.

Do I get excited by the idea? Have the team got the skills and energy to nail it? And is the investment at the right price?

Three yeses gets them my money, two gets them my respect, one gets them a free drink on their way out.

In the series you'll hear me banging on and on about the quality of the idea and the quality of the team as I expose myself to 500 pitches from new entrepreneurs looking for investment.

There are some where I don't rate the idea but can see talent in the entrepreneur (step forward the Porridge Power lady), there are some where the idea would do much better if it could choose itself a new team and there are a few where the planets align and both are good.

And that's when we get to talk business.

I hope people enjoy watching the show. But more than that I hope it helps people who want to set up their own company.

It's designed to, by showing both what it takes to set up a business and what investors look for in funding start ups.

And as people watch the stages unfurl it will hopefully trigger the reaction I am most looking for in the viewer - one of, 'hang on, I could do that'.

And if you do find yourself thinking that when you're watching, you're right.

So switch the telly off and go get started on your business plan instead.

Richard Reed is the co-founder of innocent Drinks and appears in Be Your Own Boss.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

A massive name, a faker's favourite. To prove it would transform the fortunes of its owner Patrick Rice, who has devoted a large part of his waking hours in retirement to prove it.

Authenticating paintings is engrossing but fraught with dangers.

The auction world is relatively unregulated and stepping past the landmines a collector's necessity. But there are simple starting points for telling a dodgy picture from the real thing.

So here are my five tips for when you're buying at auction. The same tools can be used in the buying process from antique dealers or gallery owners from whom it is often easier to get clear, protective guarantees.

Cheese in the trap

Question what you see. Pictures for sale can be signed by big names like Picasso or Turner or with exciting looking labels on the reverse indicating exhibitions or collections.

Be deeply cynical.

Have a look at the cataloguing. If the auctioneers have not made any reference to the obvious artist they normally know something you don't.

I call these Cheese in the Trappers (Trappers for short). They are extremely common, particularly in less well-known auction houses or on internet sites, and often estimated at under £100 to lure the unwary.

Framed by the frame

A frame can be an excellent way of outing a fake. Most fakes or trappers at sale are done in the last year and the frames are modern or wrong.

Most serious 20th Century artists made sure their pictures were properly framed, or at least their dealers did.

Wrong frames look too modern, or cheap, or cut-down from something bigger. Often they don't quite fit, like hand-me down trousers.

Bendor Grosvenor, Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould in Fake Or Fortune?

Health check

A knackered picture is relatively worthless. Many people are taken by paintings that may be old and possibly by good artists but that have been so over-cleaned or butchered by amateur restorers that no one wants them.

When an old painting has been savagely over-cleaned or overly-pressed onto a fresh canvas (called re-lining - a common process of restoring old oil paintings) the surface details are often lost.

Done more brutally still and the whole top layers go, leaving no more than the preparation layer.

At this level you can often see the gauze of the canvas beneath. Remove that and you have no more than the bare bones - ie raw canvas!

The usual way of dealing with wounds like this is literally to repaint those areas. It's called overpaint or inpainting. Whenever this in evidence it's a big warning sign.

So look out for raw canvas and overpaint, also later daubing that covers damage like a badly touched-up car chassis.

Another way of spotting overpaint is that it often covers over the craquelure - natural cracking found in old paint - in a way that looks stodgy and clumsy.

Plumbing the past provenance is often key.

Try to ascertain recent ownership. Trappers or fakes normally come from 'a little old lady' a 'house clearance' or 'we just don't know'.

Use your instincts here. Bluff has a way of sounding hollow or evasive.

Trust your eye

Get to see as much real art as possible and don't make too many apologies for the potential purchase in question.

Countless times I have been shown pictures that purport to be by a great hand on 'a bad day'. In my experience good artists don't have bad hair days - just the odd lazy or distracted moment, and the coiffeur remains detectable.

Philip Mould is an art expert and the co-presenter of Fake Or Fortune?.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

As a Dad, I regularly read stories to my three kids (not regularly enough they would say!).

But if I'm honest, I think I'm better telling stories at work, using cameras and computers than I am at home with a book.

So although I wouldn't describe myself as a Luddite, I am rarely what those in tech-land call an "early adopter".

It takes me a while to really embrace all the positives of new technology - please don't tell my wife, but I still have all my LPs in boxes in the garage, just in case Apple goes bust and takes my iTunes account with them!

It was always nice to hear from the successful entrepreneur at the end of a pitch, talking about why they chose a particular Dragon, or why they were happy to give away more equity than originally planned.

But within the programme, you never got to hear why a Dragon was interested in making an offer, or how they managed to wrestle the deal from one of their rivals.

Putting extra footage on Red Button allows all those questions to be answered and more.

So in this week's Red Button episode, we interview a husband and wife team who stun the Dragons with what they've achieved with their product - let's just say they do what no one else has ever done across 10 series.

You'll also see one of the biggest characters we've ever had in the Den.

Vicki Edmunds is one of those people who just deserves more screen time. By pressing Red, as well as enjoying many of her entertaining comments, you'll get to see her wonderful impression of Hilary Devey!

Continuing throughout the series, as well as hearing from some of the favourite characters from that night's episode, you'll also be able to catch up on some of the investments from last series, have a look at the psychology of pitching to the Dragons, see how the set has changed over the years (as many viewers will have noticed that the Den has moved down a floor into the basement this year) and see inside the home of one of this year's successful entrepreneurs, as they watch the programme transmit along with their friends and family.

All in all, pressing the Red Button allows you to really get an all-round view of the Den - what it's like for the entrepreneurs, sneaking a peek behind the scenes, getting post-match analysis of the action, and simply more of your favourite characters.

For me it's when technology works best. When I just press red on my remote, it makes it easy for me to get what I want, when I want it, and without having to buy an extra piece of equipment.

Perhaps I should bite the bullet and start putting those LPs on eBay. Other auction sites are of course available!

Sam Lewens is the executive producer of Dragons' Den.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

So here's a rough guide to what the panicking politicians are doing in the new series.

A long time ago (and given that even a week is a long time in politics, three years is almost geological) there was an election. The interesting thing was: no-one seemed to have won.

The biggest party, run by a team of public schoolboys, wasn't elected outright and could only sweep into government using the third party ('the in-betweeners') as a massive crutch, like some kind of electoral version of Long John Silver.

And this particular pirate's pact obviously included a share-out of the loot, and that included DoSAC (Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship).

The secretary of state's job went to Peter Mannion, jazz fan and long-time social affairs shadow minister, but he was forced into working with Fergus Williams, an MP from the in-betweeners.

Fergus is a hotheaded hotspur of a politician, keen as mustard to make a mark in what is probably his only chance of wielding power.

Fergus is a minister full of ideas making him an extremely dangerous proposition. Peter Mannion's out to neutralise this threat by giving Fergus the uninteresting bits of the job and ignoring him as much as he can.

Fergus, on the other hand, is doing his best to be noticed. All the time.

DoSAC's communications director Terri Coverley does her best to pretend they aren't there but then she's always had a bit of a thing about Peter, ever since they were photographed together with a sustainable salmon for the Waitrose staff newsletter.

Fergus has got a team of two advisors - Glenn Cullen and ex-Daily Mail hack Adam Kenyon - versus Mannion's long-standing team of Phil Smith and Emma Messinger.

To say there was tension between Glenn and Adam on one side and Phil and Emma on the other is a bit like saying the Arab Spring was 'quite lively'.

Emma and Phil used to share a house and Emma used to go out with a guy from the opposition called Olly Reeder, but that's all political history now.

Glenn used to be a mate of Olly's too but hasn't spoken to him since Glenn defected to the in-betweeners.

It seemed like a good idea at the time but Glenn didn't expect to be in a coalition with the very people he despises most.

Ambitious as ever Olly thinks he's making the most of being out of power having held onto a job as policy advisor to the new leader of the opposition.

But by a staggering coincidence his new boss is the same as his old one, former DoSAC secretary Nicola Murray who got elected as party leader through an over-complex accident of transferable voting.

Some might call Nicola a claustrophobic neurotic.

She hasn't enjoyed the last couple of years as her colleagues (people like 'Big' Ben Swain and deputy leader Dan Miller) are blaming her inability to come up with anything like a coherent set of policies as the reason why they aren't doing well in the polls.

Nicola has Olly's 'unwavering' support, of course, as well as the 'solid' backing of her other policy advisor Helen Hatley.

And she thinks she has the support of Malcolm Tucker, feared throughout SW1 for his delightful way with words and his career-lethal contacts.

Malcolm's always undyingly loyal to the party, but is that exactly the same thing? We'll find out.

Adam Tandy is the producer of The Thick Of It.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.